Trauma bonds are both psychological and emotional, and you cannot just fall out of a trauma bond like you can fall out of love.

When you no longer love the narcissist or you might even hate them. That trauma bond can still be present. These bonds have to be broken so you can heal. It’s very difficult to stay away from a narcissist, especially if you still love them and are bonded to them. First I recommend you find out about narcissism, this will help you fall out of love with them. It’ll also help you stick to no contact or limited if you have children. Then you can heal the trauma bond.

You’re not alone lots of people stay in an abusive relationship, way longer than they ever should have, even when they know they want to leave. Lots of people also go back because of this trauma bond. It’s another manipulative tactic the narcissist will use. They know that even though you’ve left, or they left. That you’re trauma bonded and that’s why they will try to hoover.

The longer the relationship goes on, the harder it is to break free, as your boundaries will have been ripped apart by the narcissist to the point where you no longer have any. As they’ve controlled you for so long, you’ll not know who you are without them.

Trauma bonds are caused by the idealisation stages of the relationship with the narcissist, and your empathetic loyalty to those you care about. The manipulation you receive from, the love bombing, then abuse. It keeps you off balance and hoping for that nice narcissist to come back.

Traumatic relationships cause natural hormones to be released, like adrenaline, cortisol, in such high levels it becomes addictive.

In the idolisation stage, and the love bombing stages you get the dopamine hormone, that is so intense, and you simply become hooked on the dopamine release.

With this pattern of hormonal release, it becomes extremely addictive, within the body and the mind.

After the trauma bond has been created, it’s hard to stay away from the narcissist as you lose the intensity of these hormones. You may find you mistake yourself for being in love with the narcissist when you are not. It’s worse it’s a chemical and emotional bonding to the narcissist. You become dependent on them as a direct result of the abuse and inconsistency.

It’s the cycle of hormones your body and mind have become so used to and after being so conditioned by the narcissist you’re hooked. It’s an addiction to the cycle rather than the person.

When you look at the facts and find them, you’ll probably no longer respect them. You don’t trust them, you may fear them. You don’t like how they behave. You’ll probably not have much in common with them. This is not love. You don’t want the narcissist because you love them. It’s the trauma bond and conditioning of your subconscious mind, that being in any form of relationship with them has now caused. You may think the narcissist will change. This is to try and justify to yourself why you take them back. You need to realise this to break free, and A narcissist will never change.

If someone is hurting you, cheating on you, lying to you, undermining your confidence, telling people lies about you, gaslighting you manipulating you. They do not care about you. The Narcissist only cares about themselves. They are abusing you, and it is as bad as it seems to you. Truly listen to how they speak. It will always somehow revert back to them, unless you catch them out. Then, of course, it’ll be twisted around to being all your fault.

There is no excuse for a narcissist to abuse you. They don’t love you, and you no longer love them, you need to do is break the trauma bond, which is hard.

To break the trauma bond, you need to talk to yourself and work out that the narcissist is abusive in so many ways, and they never change. You need to start living in reality. Accept the truth. Look at it for what it is. It’ll never change. You need to acknowledge that someone who loved and cared would not constantly treat you this way. They will not change. You need to realise that you do not love them. You have empathy and emotions you’re allowed to be upset and grieve, in fact, that’s a vital part of the healing process from the trauma bond. You’re losing something that was once valuable to you. Even if that person you first met never actually existed, just a narcissist hiding behind the mask. Like a vampire hiding from the sun. A narcissist will draw every bit of your energy emotions and personality always from you often leaving you empty. That’s ok it happened because you’re a good person that likes to see the best in everyone, But what can you do about an empty glass. Yes, you can fill it back up. A building starts with foundations. You can build yours again, with more knowledge than you had before. Turn you into a better you. The narcissist would not help fix you if the narcissist was to smash a glass on the floor, so it’s completely broken. That narcissist can not come in say sorry to it in the narcissists way of “ I’m sorry you jumped out of my hand glass” and put it back together it’ll never happen. You’re allowed scars. Now picture that glass back together with pretty sparkly glue. Yes, exactly you’ll not go to who you were before, you can make yourself better than you were before with some added touches. You’ll be more aware of moving onto good people who don’t want to break you in the first place.

Feel how you feel now if it’s hurting you, your children or your family. If this is how you felt last year and you gave it another go, you know it didn’t work because here you are again. You can, and you will break this cycle and when you do your life will be amazing. Others have done it, and so can you.

Take each day as it comes. Start by living in the moment. Baby steps to help you get to where you want to be. You will feel better soon enough, and before you know it, you’ll feel great.

You need to create strong boundaries with the narcissist to gain your self-respect and lots of self-care. Who cares what they are saying, they just want to destroy you as narcissist hate seeing others happy as they can never be truly happy. You can be, and you will be. You can accept accountability they can not.

You also have empathy, so it’s ok that you wanted to help them change and be a good person. There is nothing wrong with you. But you do however need to realise that, you tried, you gave it your all, it’s breaking you, and you’re no longer a happy, confident person and you need to walk away from the narcissist forever. Then you need to put all that effort you put into trying to help them. That effort needs to be put into helping you. Yes, you can change. You changed who you once were for the narcissist so you can change to who you want to be now.

Yes, it’s hard, but you can do it. Acknowledge your feeling your allowed them. Writing them down, journaling can help.

Make a list of fantasy then write the reality it helps

Example. Fantasy “ They said they would cheat”

Reality “ They cheated.”

When you acknowledge it out loud or writing it down, it helps, the chemical component of the trauma bond will lessen over time, thus making it easier to move on.

Click the link below for the full online course to help you understand and overcome narcissistic abuse, with a link inside to free access for the hidden online support group, with daily advice and support from me, alongside other survivors doing the course.

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Published by Elizabeth shaw

Hello, I’m Liz, I'm a slightly 🙄 dyslexic Blogger (So my grammar and punctuation aren't always the best.) who enjoys writing, and if I can overcome my fears and do it anyway, so can you. Also, I have a YouTube channel which being dyslexic my words are not always pronounced correctly, yet I still have some fantastic support from a fantastic community of survivors. If you want to do anything in life, half the battle is facing your fears and getting started. I'm also a mum and get the pleasure to raise five incredible boys, I have three with the ex-husband, who’s just unique, and my youngest two with the ex narcissistic sociopath. I want to raise as much awareness as possible about the Narcissist Personality Disorder, to give people more understanding of what they've been through, more awareness so hopefully, people know the signs so don’t get involved in the first place, ways to get out safely, help with all the counter-parenting the narcissist throws in, help with whoever the narcissist is in your life, and most importantly recovery from narcissistic abuse, so you can move past it and have an incredible life, that you deserve.
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One thought on “Trauma Bonding With A Narcissist.”

Not many people understand the concept of trauma bonding. It is complex. It took me a while to realize that what kept me bonded to my ex was not love. Educating myself about Narcissistic personality disorder was the only way I managed to free myself from his hold.